The always interesting Robin Good posted the transcript of his video interview with me about Web 2.0:

I do think, we should not assume that the power of peer to peer communications and starting new industries in your dormitory room is going to get you a reliable and profitable business. We are in fact seeing a full-blown reaction and counter attack by the incumbent companies whose business model depends on having a monopoly on distribution based on the old one-way communication model.

So you are seeing the recording industry and the motion picture industry with digital rights management, you are seeing the extension of copyrights by the big companies that are copyright holders and who are actually baking-in the control of the use of technology in what they call “Trusted Computing‘, and which will appear in the next version of Windows. I think taking together these measures represent an attempt to enclose and constrain the ability of the users to create computer peer-to-peer applications.

The most ominous of these is I think the issue of net neutrality, in which the modem and cable companies in the U.S are wanting to impose a new approach on the use of the Internet in which they can charge some users more for sending their bits (making their web site accessible) while privileging some large established companies to provide fast access to their sites and information based on the money being paid back to them. I think this is something particularly important especially we look at the overall political and legal scenario in which this is happening.